Publication: Sheet extrusion process evaluation and improvement to optimize resource utilization – an industrial case study in a plastic packaging industries plant
Date
2008-04-01
Authors
Hew, Siaw wan
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Abstract
Currently, the sheet extrusion process recognized as high volume manufacturing process at a plastic packaging industrial encountered the low productivity issues. The specific objective of this investigation studied the methodological application of experimental design to optimize the influence of various process parameters involved in the PP sheet extrusion Design of Experiment (DOE) methodology using Taguchi orthogonal array (OA) was applied to evaluate the influence of eight factors (proportion of mixture for virgin and recycled/scrap material, extruder-screw rotational speed, barrel temperature, melt pressure, rate of cooling, drawing speeds, roller temperature and tension of pull rolls) for PP (Polypropylene) sheet extrusion. The selected eight processing parameters were considered at multi - levels in the experimental design with an OA layout of Lis (2'x 3*). Plans of experiments via eighteen experimental runs are based on the orthogonal arrays. In this study, the throughput rate (kg/hr) and appearance performances are adopted as the quality characteristics. Analysis of the experimental data using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios provide information about statistically significant factors and result in finding optimum levels of factors. The main effects plots demonstrated how euch factor affects the response characteristic. Finally, the derived optimum operating conditions procured by the validation studies showed increusing of throughput rate from 200 kg/hr to 240 kg/hr with good guality of surface.